Shyness and physical attractiveness in mixed-sex dyads.

Abstract

Male and female strangers' shyness and physical attractiveness strongly affected their own and their partners' behavior during initial, unstructured interactions. First, dyad-level measures of behavioral involvement and perceived interaction quality were independently predicted by the men's shyness and the women's physical attractiveness. Second, shy men exerted avoidant control over mutual gazing by denying their female partners (but not themselves) opportunities to initiate and terminate mutual gazes. Third, as physical attractiveness of the men increased, conversations included fewer references to 3rd-party individuals, with the women appearing to be primarily responsible for setting the "exclusive" tone of these conversations. Fourth, as physical attractiveness of the women increased, the men reported an increasing percentage of metaperspective thoughts and feelings that reflected the symbolic adoption of their female partners' perspective.First impressions matter. In some instances (e.g., during job interviews and blind dates), the images created during initial encounters govern one's access to significant social and material rewards as well as to subsequent interactions. Even when continued encounters are ensured (e.g., when first meeting a new neighbor or co-worker), these same images color one's subsequent perceptions of the other person's friendliness, desirability, and competence. The enduring impact of first impressions seems exaggerated relative to the limited amount of information available in any single encounter.Certain personal characteristics influence initial impressions more than others. Characteristics that are readily observable should have the greatest initial impact. For example, race and gender are conspicuous features that have been shown to exert considerable influence on interpersonal behavior and perceptions (e.g., Ickes, 1984;Ickes & Barnes, 1977;Ickes, Schermer, & Steeno, 1979). In this study, we examined the impact of two other dispositional variables that are salient early in an interaction: physical attractiveness and shyness.Both of these characteristics are readily discerned. Evidence of their observability was reported by Funder and Dobroth Portions of these results were presented at the 1990 International Conference on Interaction and Close Relationships at Nags Head, North Carolina, and at the 1990 meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago.

Sex Differences in Short-term Mate Preferences and Behavioral Mimicry: A Semi-Naturalistic Experiment

“…Because of this procedure, the influence of individual differences in social skills on participants was minimized. This is one of the major advantages of the use of trained confederates over the studies that used pairings of regular participants (Berry & Miller, 2001;Garcia et al, 1991). In addition, the credibility of the situation should be given a great amount of attention.…”

“…These inner drives are existent and can be truly felt instead of anticipated. There are a few studies that investigated the influence of physical attractiveness on opposite-sex interactions (e.g., Berry & Miller, 2001;Garcia, Stinson, Ickes, Bissonnette, & Briggs, 1991). However, these studies randomly paired participants with one another, resulting in diverse and incomparable situations, and STM-desire was never assessed.…”

Shyness and face scanning in children

“…Of these toddlers, some will maintain their avoidant tendencies and develop into temperamentally shy children and adults (Biedel & Turner, 1998;Schmidt & Schulkin, 1999). Interestingly, although the avoidance of eye contact is an observable behavior presumed to maintain non-clinical shyness (Cheek & Buss, 1981;Garcia, Stinson, Ickes, Bissonnette, & Briggs, 1991;Pilkonis, 1977), no studies have used eye tracking to reliably capture precise face scanning patterns in relation to shyness among non-clinical samples and apparently none with children.…”

Effects of physical attractiveness on relation initiation

“…Physical attractiveness in an "everyday" setting has previously been studied in a laboratory paradigm (Garcia, Stinson, Ickes, Bissonnette, & Briggs, 1991;Mulford, Orbell, Shatto, & Stockard, 1998;Berry & Hansen, 2000, 1996. Although some (e.g., Reis et al, 1980Reis et al, , 1982 have emphasized the need to study physical attractiveness in a naturally occurring setting, others posit that a laboratory paradigm is the only way to get at direct effects of physical attractiveness (Berry & Miller, 2001).…”